Baby peppers

[bill_schubert]

I have not done well in the past growing things.  It is not an ADHD sport.  I once had an excellent run of tomatoes in Florida during the winter.  And we had a great romaine lettuce crop a while back.  But here in Texas seems like by the time I get it in the ground it is crispy leaves from 100+ degree heat and I forget in August to kick off the winter.  But I did get some pepper seeds.  They are known as Lunchbox Sweet Peppers and we love them.

I managed out of about 20 or so seeds to get three seedlings.  I think my next step is to re-pot them into separate containers so I'll do that today.  They will not be able to go outside for a few more weeks.  It is too hot.  But they are happy to grow where they are on my window ledge.

I'm hoping I can get some herbs started too.  I've got the perfect window sill and time.

Comments

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

You're in Texas? That's got to be challenging, temperature-wise.
I doubt I can offer anything practical in the way of experiential advice, but I will recommend that you check the soil surface's temperature before you water. Reason: water is a great conductor of heat and if the soil's surface feels hot to the touch, watering carries that heat down to the roots and cooks them. Always gauge by how firm or wilty the leaves seem, and even if they are acting droopy and limp, give the plant some time to cool off and to recover from the heat stress, say overnight in a cool environment (AC if you're indoors, or overnight temperatures if there's no cooler environment.) And if there's no place but outdoors for plants, even in containers, wait until the night's as cool as it will be, in a hot summer, and then water.
Oh, and if they are outdoors and the surface of the soil is hot and it rains, well, it rains. That's life in a garden.

ETA: I have an ADHD nephew who's successfully gardening and beekeeping. I understand it's not your aim in life, but an ADHD person can manage it.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks for the advice. I did not know about that and am pretty sure we've done it wrong forever. That may account for our problem with plants. I think these guys might be ready just about the time it cools off enough for being outside. At least I'm hoping.

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

Many people have been doing hot-weather gardening wrong for a long time. And truth to tell, I wasn't aware of this heat-transferred-by-watering-cooking-roots thing until this gardening season, but I'm in a "moderate" summer region, where even the heat index doesn't get to 100°F except very rarely although we have days on end too hot for plants to flower and set fruit.

I think it can be very hard for people to remember how very narrow a temperature range is for many---most---plants to survive and thrive and make fruit/seed. People can't understand why the Little Ice Age was a big deal: the decline in average temperature was less than five degrees. To a human, that's negligible. Humans manage to reproduce successfully in a very wide temperature range ( -60°F in Siberia to 130°F in Death Valley or in parts of Arabia) and to manage to sustain themselves. Cockroaches and rodents, mostly rats and mice, are just about that successful.
On average for, say, tomatoes, when the ambient temperatures exceed...85°F daytime temperatures, I think it is, the plants don't flower, and if they don't flower, they don't make fruit. Some varieties of watermelon, however, refuse to think about making flowers and fruit until daytime temps are at least 80°F. *shrug*
To complicate things, nighttime temps have to be 'not more than this and not less than that," too.

That watering business: we're scorching hot in scorching heat, and cool water running over our wrists or ankles or splashed against our temples feels lovely; immerse in it, and it's delightful---carrying off heat usually without throwing us into shock and without cooking the shower stall or the bathtub or pool or the swimmin' hole. Plants have a much different experience.
(Did I warn you I tend to verbosity? ---I do. )

Some plants, like runner beans, like warm but not hot days, and they want their feet damp and on the cool side, so they want the soil mulched.

To return to your Lunchbox Sweet Peppers, they want constant moisture levels in the soil, so you want to keep an eye on that (shove your finger into the soil: it ought to be damp up to the knuckle closest to your fingernail) and add the water when the surface of the soil feels warm, but not hot.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

I went outside just now (temp is 90 degrees and sunny) and my wife was watering something. Discretion being the better part of valor I did not say anything but will drop your info into the conversation later.

And, more is better. I'd love to have some of these peppers and suspect this timing will work. So far they are happy little plants.

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

Depending on precisely where in Texas you are (no, don't tell me: I don't need to know but it matters to you if you're gardening), I'm guessing you have time to sow and grow another crop of Lunchbox Sweet Peppers.
Google to find out your last and first frost dates; yes, that order is correct: last killing frost of winter happens earlier in the year in the northern hemisphere than the first killing frost of autumn/winter ditto. You calculate the sowing date by counting backwards from the first killing frost date the number of days required for harvest, and add the germination time; you need at least that much time for your peppers to produce.

Your peppers might do better for you on the "shoulders" of your meteorological summer, if next year you try growing them around, rather than through, the hottest part of the summer. It's true that tomatoes, eggplants and peppers as well as cucumbers and melons are great heat lovers, but they have those temperature limitations when it comes to making the next generation. You've been in Florida, so you probably already know how in Florida the cooler "shoulder" period crops for us up here in the north, things like Brussels sprouts or cabbages or kale or leeks or beets, are grown successfully during Florida's winter.
HOWEVER!!!: if the plants are healthy and happy as things are now, be patient and be gentle. The important thing is that they be healthy and when conditions are right they can make fruit for you.

By the way, you can also Google "How to grow Lunchbox Sweet Peppers" or just "How to grow peppers" and do some reading. (I'm happy to answer whatever questions I can, but my climate's a lot different to yours, I think, and I'm not an authority on peppers.)

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

It's in my profile and no secret. We're in central Texas, north of Austin. Frost is not a huge issue here. Used to be but now we have NOT GLOBAL WARMING and it hasn't iced over in years. So I'm thinking the upside is I might be flipping the growing season. The ones I just started will be ready for the ground about the time it stops being in the 100s. I may start some more in a month.

I'll keep up info in my LJ.

Thanks.

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

Aw...I was being lazy and not opening another browser window to find out your location and thought it would be safer to assume you were treating it as nobody else's business.
A friend of mine in the greater DFW area has told me often enough about having to wait for winter or almost-winter to plant food crops I think of as spring/fall, so I'm thinking you might be on to something to flip your growing season. (BTW, altitude makes some difference, too, when it comes to seasonal weather but I expect you are already aware of t hat.)

As noted above I am most emphatically not an authority on peppers. I looked online, though, and for flowering and fruiting, peppers want 75-85°F during the day, and 50-60°F at night. Rather narrow, eh?

Oh---about the watering.
Are there drainage holes in the bottom/s of the container/s you're using for growing your peppers? If there are (and I trust and hope there are) you can fill another container large enough to accept the peppers' container with water and place the peppers' container far enough into that "pool" so the soil can uptake water from the bottom. It's a type of "bottom watering," it's less traumatic (don't make the water icy, but it can be cool) and it bypasses that whole heat transfer from the soil surface business. Additionally, it encourages the plant roots to go deeper to find water, which develops a stronger root system and leaves the plant/s less vulnerable to drying when the top inch or so of soil goes dry in heat, sun and drying winds.
And do not let them sit in their "pool." Let them get wet from the bottom, then let the soil drain after a good drink.

If your container garden ever gets to the point of the soil mixture pulling away from the sides of the "pot," bottom watering is definitely in order because the water applied in "top" watering too often just runs off the surface, down the sides and out the bottom and never gets to the roots.
https://www.thespruce.com/watering-plants-in-containers-847785

/soapbox

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Good info. I think they are ready to be re-potted now. If I can get them in new pots and happy they will likely grow to a size ready to go outside next month which is when the temp should be about right. We'll see. Interesting about watering from the bottom. I do that with my trees. I've got a water stick that shoots it below the roots making them reach down for the water. Same idea.

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

Ah! I had thought about suggesting a DIY watering stick to carry water to the center of the soil mass or to the bottom of the container if those you're using are without drainage holes. (Are they, by any chance, either dishpans or oil -change pans? I used dishpans into which I'd drilled drainage holes, once, when I "pre-germinated" some bean seeds too early for the plants to go outdoors but couldn't bear to let the sprouted seeds just rot, nor could I bring myself to throw them out. Stuck bamboo canes into them so the beans, a pole variety, would have something to climb.)
They're often known as "SIPS: Self-Irrigating Planters" or "Self Irrigating Planter System."
Those generally have a reservoir in the bottom of the container which does NOT have drainage holes, but you could do something on a smaller scale with some tubing and, maybe, a small-ish, inexpensive but presumably food-safe funnel from the cookwares section of your local dollar store. (Tubing will be water line tubing used for refrigerators with water dispensers or automatic ice cube makers, in the plumbing section of Lowe's, Home Depot, etc.) That's if your container hasn't any drainage hole/s, or if you re-pot into something large enough to do the SIPS thing.
Er...at some point in the more distant future....